Green Options

4 million fewer vehicles. This is the first year there was such a large decline in automobile ownership since the US Department of Transportation (DOT) began modern recordkeeping in 1960.

How did this come about? What were the main causes?

I’m a hugger.  I hug my children; I hug my friends.  Some cultures greet people with kisses on the cheek; some with handshakes.

Teenage culture across America is embracing the hug!

Hugging is not just for romantic relationships.  According to the New York Times, teenagers have broken down hugs by type:

There is the basic friend hug, probably the most popular, and the bear hug, of course. But now there is also the bear claw, when a boy embraces a girl awkwardly with his elbows poking out.

There is the hug that starts with a high-five, then moves into a fist bump, followed by a slap on the back and an embrace.

There’s the shake and lean; the hug from behind; and, the newest addition, the triple — any combination of three girls and boys hugging at once.

According to researchers at the University of Minnesota, eating together as a family during adolescence is associated with lasting positive effects on dietary quality in young adulthood.

Students surveyed as teenagers were surveyed again at twenty years old to determine the long term effects of eating family meals.  Researchers found that eating family meals together during childhood resulted in adults who ate more fruits and vegetables, and drank less soft drinks.

A 2007 survey issued to approximately 9,000 adults by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that 367,000 children are vegetarians, that translates to about 1 in every 200 kids.  It is estimated that the number could be four to six times higher for teens and young adults since they have greater control over their diet.   An Associated Press article, CDC Study: 1 in 200 American Youths is Vegetarian, details the results of the CDC survey and interviews with young vegetarians.

There is brief mention of kids who are berated and made fun of for their dietary choice, as in the case of Sam Silverman, co-captain of his high school’s football team,  says, “my friends try to get me to eat meat and tell me how good it tastes and how much bigger I would be.”  But in some settings, such as Agnes Scott College, vegetarianism is widespread and food choices at cafeterias are beginning to cater to the students’ dietary choice.

The best way to find out how important the environment is to Korean youths, I thought, is to ask them. Luckily, I happen to know a number of Korean youths: they’re my English students. Ah! A captive audience.

So, I handed out strips of paper to each student and asked them to anonymously mark the answer choice that they agreed with. On the paper were three lines:

• Protecting the environment is very important to me.
• Protecting the environment is a little bit important to me.
• Protecting the environment is not important to me.

A new book will coming out soon geared at empowering teenagers to save the earth. 47 Things Teens Can Do For The Environment is written by Lexi Petronis and published by Zest Books, but there is one problem: the book needs cover art! That’s where teenagers step in…

Zest Books is hosting a Teens Go Green Book Cover Design Contest. Here are some of the specifics of the contest:

1. The book title must be very easy to read. Make sure the title is very visible and large enough to be seen on a book shelf from 1-3 feet away.

2. The book cover must be the size indicated above: 6.5 x 6.5

3. ALL FINAL ENTRIES MUST BE EMAILED NO LATER THAN JAN 31, 2008 TO: contest@zestbooks.net

4. The design can be created in any medium either by hand or on the computer. If created by hand, entries must be scanned. All entries must be smaller than 2 megs.

Today was the first day of the first time I’m teaching Advanced Environmental Sustainability.  I’ve had three semesters of what we call EES–Exploring Environmental Sustainability, a class I proposed and designed myself two years ago.  I was nervous and excited–nervous because I’m team teaching this class with our Environmental Studies teacher and I’ve never teamed before, and excited because all the kids were returners who had done well the first time around.

Our new class is going to focus on one area of sustainability–energy.  We’re going to look at energy resources, how consumer choices, public policy, and politics influence our energy consumption, how building construction interacts with energy, and how energy use can contribute to pollution.  Today, we just had a review.  It has been a year since a few of my kids had taken our intro class, so we wanted to see what they would remember.  Once we got going, it turns out they remembered a lot.  They were able to name several renewable and non-renewable resources, describe greenhouse gases and how they contribute to climate change, and talk about where we get most of our energy from.  They knew several of the plusses and minuses to each type of energy and where some of it comes from.